Heinrich Sundermann

Heinrich Sundermann (born October 29, 1849 in Ladbergen , † April 1919 in Göttingen ) was a Protestant missionary and an honorary doctorate from the University of Halle.

Life

Heinrich Sundermann was born in Ladbergen- Overbeck. He was a missionary for the Rhenish Mission Society from 1875 to 1910 on the island of Nias in what was then the Dutch East Indies . In addition to preaching the Gospel, he devoted himself to translating and researching the Niassic language. His work includes dictionaries and a grammar. His greatest work, however, was the translation of the New Testament into the Niassic language , which was published as a book in Amsterdam in 1892 . On behalf of the Dutch Bible Society, he translated the entire Bible into Niassic from 1904 to 1915. On August 28, 1911, he was awarded the Order of Orange-Nassau by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands . Heinrich Sundermann died in Göttingen in April 1919.

In Ladbergen the baptismal font of the Protestant church still reminds of Heinrich Sundermann. It is a shell found by his first Christian baptized into Nias, which was converted into a special baptismal font.

literature

• "Our Circle 1990". Yearbook for the Steinfurt district , ISBN 3-926619-11-2
• Heinrich Sundermann: The island of Nias and the mission there , Rheinische Missionsschriften Nr. 125, Verlag des Missionshauses, Barmen 1905